Darwin's notes on Wallace's Island Life book

Full transcription

[in pencil by ARW]
Notes have been recorded in
text.

[in pen ARW] Darwin's notes on
"Island Life"

[in pen by Darwin]
p 46 - I am sure that I have read of a Mus from Viti Is[lan]d but
this may have been introduced. I am nearly sure that Günther
has described mammals from New Hebrides, & French-men from New
Caledonia, but perhaps you w[oul]d hardly call latter oceanic
is[lan]d
p68 I must heartily concur about separated genera of canis[?]
family: I cautioned Günther on this <….> account
before he published his Tortoise paper.

p72 You probably know more than I do about distribution of land
molluscs over Pacific, but I think there must be some far more
effective means of dispersal than rafts or floating trees. Dr Gould
showed how every inlet in to Pacific has land-shells. p157 I
heartily agree about N. Zealand. When Hutton speaking of the
extinction of all temperate forms during a <…> glacial
period, he overlooks probability (as it seems to me) of former land
(or approximate[?]islands) communication[?] to the north, whence,
as I suspect, N.[ew] Zealand was formerly[?] stocked.

p172 Is it not rather rash to refer paucity of fossils to coldness
[ARW: not to the point] of waters, seeing how wonderfully rich the
bottom of sea has just found off the n. coast of Siberia, - not to
mention the abyssal regions of the great oceans. May not paucity be
due to the stirring up of the bottom by <gla>
icebergs?